EKpass has been selected by oil sands producer CNRL to provide training to operators of both electric and hydraulic shovels.

Second only to the Saudi Arabia reserves, Alberta’s oil sands deposits were described by Time Magazine as “Canada’s greatest buried energy treasure,” and “could satisfy the world’s demand for petroleum for the next century”.

Oil Sands are deposits of bitumen, viscous oil that will not flow unless heated or diluted with lighter hydrocarbons. They are contained in three major areas beneath 140,200 square kilometres of north-eastern Alberta – an area larger than the state of Florida, an area twice the size of New Brunswick, more than four and half times the size of Vancouver Island, and 26 times larger than Prince Edward Island. However, only about two per cent of the initial established resource has been produced to date.

Alberta’s oil sands industry is the result of multi-billion-dollar investments in infrastructure and technology required to develop the non-conventional resource. According to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), in 2006 industry investment in Alberta’s oil sands totaled approximately $14 billion.

Annual oil sands production is growing steadily as the industry matures. Output of marketable oil sands production increased to1.126 million barrels per day in 2006. With anticipated growth, this level of production could reach 3 million barrels per day by 2020 and possibly even 5 million barrels per day by 2030. This degree of activity would support the development of other key industries and see Alberta become a Global Energy Leader.

Development of Alberta’s oil sands resources represents a triumph of technological innovation. Over the years, government and industry have worked together to find innovative and economic ways to extract and process the oil sands and energy research is more important today than ever before.

EKpass has now provided training at 3 different mines in the Alberta oil sands.